Contents receiving system and client

ABSTRACT

A method of reproducing audio content between a main terminal including a first speaker and a plurality of subsidiary terminals including a second speaker. Device specific identification (ID) information of the subsidiary terminals and association information for transmitting one of the audio data of the audio content to one of the subsidiary terminals are stored. The association information defines that one of the audio data of the audio content is associated with one of the device specific ID information. The subsidiary terminals transmit/receive with the main terminal and the device specific ID information is transmitted from the subsidiary terminals to the main terminal when connecting to the main terminal. The encoded audio data of the audio content is transmitted to the subsidiary terminals based on the association information, then is decoded and the subsidiary terminals output the audio data to the second speaker.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 13/972,624, filedAug. 21, 2013, which is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.11/861,390, filed Sep. 26, 2007 (now U.S. Pat. No. 8,544,049). Thisapplication relates to and claims priority from Japanese PatentApplication No. 2006-261645, filed on Sep. 27, 2006. The entirety of thecontents and subject matter of all of the above is incorporated hereinby reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Part of the present invention relates to technologies for receivingvideo content through two-way broadcasting, for example, through adigital broadcast wave and/or a network.

A stream including digitized video content is broadcasted and deliveredto a receiving terminal unit located in each home through digitalbroadcasting or a broadband network (for example, FTTH: Fiber to theHome). This stream can include not only main video content such as atelevision program, but also various kinds of subsidiary contentsincluding a data broadcast, advertising information (commercialinformation) of a commodity, information relating to broadcast programs,subtitle data, and an electronic program guide (EPG).

At this time, if the main content and the subsidiary content aresimultaneously displayed on a television receiver that is a typicalreceiving terminal unit, each display area used to display each contentbecomes narrower, and accordingly it becomes relatively difficult for auser to view each content.

For the purpose of solving such a problem, for example, JP-A-2002-169747and JP-A-2005-198061 described below disclose that main content isdisplayed on a main receiving terminal unit, whereas subsidiary contentis displayed on, for example, a subsidiary receiving terminal unit suchas portable communications equipment and a remote control unit.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

As described above, it is possible to provide a user with various kindsof information as subsidiary content. Here, even if each individualbelongs to the same family, subsidiary content desired by one familymember may differ from that desired by another family member. Forexample, if commercial information and a data broadcast are provided assubsidiary contents, there is a case where one family member wants toacquire the commercial information, whereas another family member wantsto acquire news of the data broadcast.

Therefore, it is desirable that an information receiving terminal unitused at home, such as a television receiver, be capable of providingmain content to be shared among the family members, and also be capableof providing subsidiary content in response to each family members tasteto allow viewing of the subsidiary content on an individual basis.However, in the above-described JP-A-2002-169747 and JP-A-2005-198061,such personalization of subsidiary content is not taken intoconsideration.

For this reason, the present invention provides a technology that issuitable for personalizing subsidiary content, which is transmittedtogether with main content, in response to users taste in, for example,a system for receiving content through a digital broadcast wave and/or anetwork.

As a specific example, there are provided a main receiving terminalunit, and a plurality of subsidiary receiving terminal units, each ofwhich is capable of transmitting/receiving data. Each of the subsidiaryreceiving terminal units is provided with specific ID (identification)information. Subsidiary content corresponding to ID information istransmitted from the main receiving terminal unit to a subsidiaryreceiving terminal unit having the ID information.

According to the above-described configuration, for example, whilefamily members view the main content such as a television program by useof a large-screen main receiving terminal unit (for example, atelevision receiver), information and data which each family memberwants to know can be acquired by use of a subsidiary receiving terminalunit held by the each family member.

According to embodiments of the present invention, for example, itbecomes possible to personalize subsidiary content in response to user'staste, and to provide each user with the subsidiary content.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an example of a contents receivingsystem;

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a specific example of a contentsreceiving system;

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of a menu screen used toselect subsidiary content, the menu screen being displayed on asubsidiary content control receiver;

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating as an example the flow of how toacquire subsidiary content;

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating one specific example of the acquisitionof subsidiary content;

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating another specific example of theacquisition of subsidiary content;

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating another specific example of a system;and

FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating an example of table information storedin a main content receiving display unit.

DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS

Embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference todrawings as below.

First Embodiment

First of all, an example of a content receiving terminal system will bedescribed with reference to FIG. 1.

In FIG. 1, through broadband Internet 104, a main content receivingdisplay unit 100, which is a main receiving terminal unit, receives astream delivered from a content delivery unit 103, and then displaysmain content. Here, it is assumed that the main content is multiplexedwith subsidiary content to form a stream. In addition, the main contentreceiving display unit 100 includes a broadcast receiver 201.Accordingly, the main content receiving display unit 100 also receivestelevision broadcast signals of broadcasting services such as digitalterrestrial broadcasting, digital BS/CS broadcasting services, andanalog broadcasting. If a television broadcast signal to be received isa digital broadcast signal, as is the case with the above, a stream intowhich the main content and the subsidiary content are multiplexed isreceived. Then, the main content is displayed on the display unit. Here,the main content receiving display unit 100 is a television receiver.Moreover, according to this embodiment, it is possible to receive both astream coming from the broadband Internet 104 and a stream coming fromtelevision broadcasting. However, it may also be so configured thateither of them can be received.

Incidentally, in this embodiment, the main content is, for example,moving picture content such as a television program. More specifically,the main content in this embodiment is video content that is displayedon the main content receiving display unit 100, and that can be viewedin common by family members.

On the other hand, each of subsidiary content control receivers A 101, B102, which are subsidiary receiving terminal units, is devised toreceive desired subsidiary content from the main content receivingdisplay unit 100, and then to display the subsidiary content on thedisplay unit, the desired subsidiary content being selected from amongstreams received by the main content receiving display unit 100.

Here, the subsidiary content includes, for example, multilanguage audiodata (including Japanese audio data and English audio data), anelectronic program guide used to program recording of a broadcastprogram (hereinafter referred to as “EPG”), an electronic content tablethat is delivered from the content delivery unit 103 (hereinafterreferred to as “ECG” (Electric Contents Guide)), and additionalinformation (including subtitle data and commercial information). Inaddition, the subsidiary content may also be content informationobtained by down-converting the main content (for example, by convertingfrom the HD (High Definition) resolution into the SD (StandardDefinition) resolution), and/or content information obtained bytransforming an encoding method of the main content (for example, bytransforming from the MPEG-2 (Motion Picture Expert Group) to theMPEG-4). In this case, the content information is subjected to copyrightprotection in response to characteristics of the content information.Moreover, if each of the subsidiary content control receivers A 101, B102 has a browser function of browsing Internet sites, the subsidiarycontent information may also be home page data (address information, andURL (Uniform Resource Locator)) on Internet and metadata.

In addition, according to this embodiment, each of the subsidiarycontent control receivers A 101, B 102 transmits/receives informationand data to/from the main content receiving display unit 100 through awireless network (for example, a wireless LAN). As a matter of course,instead of using the wireless network, a wired network may also be used.Moreover, it is desirable to design the subsidiary content controlreceiver to be portable (transportable) so that the subsidiary contentcontrol receiver can be placed near at hand of a user. Accordingly, thesize of a display unit of the subsidiary content control receiver ismade smaller than the display size of the main content receiving displayunit 100.

In this embodiment, as described below, ID information which is specificidentification information is given to, or stored in, each of theplurality of subsidiary content control receivers A 101, B 102. If thesubsidiary content control receiver A 101 or B 102 issues an acquisitionrequest to acquire desired subsidiary content, not only the acquisitionrequest but also ID information of the subsidiary content controlreceiver in question are transmitted to the main content receivingdisplay unit 100. On the receipt of the acquisition request and the IDinformation, the main content receiving display unit 100 transmits therequested desired subsidiary content to the outside together with thereceived ID information. To be more specific, the main content receivingdisplay unit 100 adds the ID information to the requested subsidiarycontent before transmitting the requested subsidiary content. Then, thesubsidiary content control receiver receives, from the main contentreceiving display unit 100, the subsidiary content to which the IDinformation has been added. Only when ID information stored in thesubsidiary content control receiver in question agrees with the IDinformation that has been received together with the subsidiary content,the subsidiary content control receiver in question acquires thesubsidiary content. As a result, each of the plurality of subsidiarycontent control receivers A 101, B 102 can display the subsidiarycontent corresponding to each ID information, and/or output audio dataof the subsidiary content corresponding to each of ID information.

For example, when the main content receiving display unit 100 receives astream that is formed by multiplexing movie image data, which isprovided as main content, with EPG data and supplementary audio datathat are provided as subsidiary content, the subsidiary content controlreceiver A 101 can receive the EPG data from the main content receivingdisplay unit 100 to display the EPG data, whereas the subsidiary contentcontrol receiver B 102 can receive the supplementary audio data tooutput the supplementary audio data. At this time, the main contentreceiving display unit 100 displays the movie that is the main content.

Further, each of the subsidiary content control receivers A 101, B 102has a web site browsing request function. Accordingly, the subsidiarycontent control receivers A 101, B 102 are also configured to be capableof acquiring information from a web site on the basis of informationincluding a URL that is linked to the main content.

Thus, according to this embodiment, the whole family members can enjoyvideo by use of the main content receiving display unit 100 that isformed of, for example, a large screen television receiver to be locatedin a living room as family use. In addition to it, it is possible toindividually enjoy the subsidiary content by use of the subsidiarycontent control receiver that can be possessed by each family member.Therefore, according to this embodiment, the usability of the contentreceiving terminal unit is improved, and it becomes possible to providevideo delivery services that suit the taste of each individual.

Moreover, according to the configuration described in this embodiment, arecording operation screen can also be displayed in the subsidiarycontent control receiver. Accordingly, recording operation can becarried out without displaying the recording operation screen on ascreen of the main content receiving display unit 100, to which thefamily members are paying attention. Therefore, without hindering thefamily members from viewing the video content displayed on the maincontent receiving display unit 100, it is possible to carry outoperation including downloading of a broadcast program on an individualbasis concurrently with the viewing of the video content. Further, themain content receiving display unit 100 acquires information aboutfunctions of the subsidiary content control receivers 101 A, 101 B. Forexample, the main content receiving display unit 100 acquires thedisplay resolution, information about content-image format processingfunctions such as H.264 and MPEG-4, and information about audioprocessing functions such as AAC or MP3. Then, the main contentreceiving display unit 100 converts a format of the main content intothat of the subsidiary content corresponding to terminal information ofa target that is either the subsidiary content control receiver 101 A or101 B. Accordingly, it becomes possible not only to provide desiredcontent information, but also to provide content corresponding to eachof the subsidiary content control receivers 101 A, 101 B. Moreover, anindividual who uses each of the subsidiary content control receivers 101A, 101 B can also be identified by use of specific ID information ofeach of the subsidiary content control receivers 101 A, 101 B.Furthermore, it is also possible to give the authority to set theparental control, and to give the authority to allow the purchase ofcontent. Accordingly, users can view content without anxiety.

Next, one specific example of a contents receiving system according tothis embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. 2. In thisexample, a case where a television receiver is used as the main contentreceiving display unit 100 will be described.

First of all, a specific example of the main content receiving displayunit 100 will be described. A broadcast receiving control unit 309includes, for example, a tuner for selecting a channel of televisionbroadcasting. The broadcast receiving control unit 309 performs channelselecting operation on the basis of a switching signal generated byoperation of a remote control unit. As a result, a stream of atelevision broadcast signal (terrestrial analog/digital broadcastsignals, BS/CS analog/digital broadcast signals) of a desired channel isreceived. In addition, each of the subsidiary content control receiversA 101, B 102 and the remote control unit may also be used incombination. In this case, a request information input/transmissioncontrol unit 313 acquires channel information based on an instruction bya user, the channel information having been transmitted from each of thesubsidiary content control receivers A 101, B 102. The channelinformation is then analyzed by a content separation control unit 310.After that, the content separation control unit 310 uses the channelinformation to control channel selection of a tuner included in thebroadcast receiving control unit 309. This also enables the subsidiarycontent control receiver A 101 or B 102 to select a channel of abroadcast program received through a broadcast wave I/F 308.

Moreover, through, for example, a network I/F 311 formed of broadbandInternet, an IP (Internet Protocol) broadcast receiving/communicationcontrol unit 312 receives, for example, a stream that is encoded byMPEG-2, or the like. This network I/F 311 may also be connected to ahome network used to communicate with an electrical apparatus used athome and/or each of the subsidiary content control receivers A 101, B102 so that a stream is received through both the home network and thenetwork I/F 311.

As described above, a stream which is received by the broadcastreceiving control unit 309 and the IP broadcast receiving/communicationcontrol unit 312 includes: main content including moving picturecontent; and subsidiary content including subtitle data, EPG data,supplementary audio data, and other broadcast program relatedinformation.

The content separation control unit 310 separates the stream into maincontent and subsidiary content, the stream being received by thebroadcast receiving control unit 309 and the IP broadcastreceiving/communication control unit 312. The content separation controlunit 310 separates the stream into the subsidiary content in response toan acquisition request that has been received from each of thesubsidiary content control receivers A 101, B 102 by the requestinformation input/transmission control unit 313. For example, when thesubsidiary content control receiver A 101 transmits an acquisitionrequest to acquire supplementary audio data (for example, Englishaudio), the request information input/transmission control unit 313receives the acquisition request, and changes a format to a desiredcontent data format on the basis of ID information, and then transmitsthe format to a CPU 301 through a request information control I/F 316and a control I/F 303.

According to a program stored in a main memory 302, the CPU 301 analyzesthe acquisition request, and then generates control informationcorresponding to the acquisition request. In this example, because theacquisition request is a request to acquire supplementary audio, the CPU301 generates control information that is used to separate the receivedstream into supplementary audio data so as to extract the supplementaryaudio data as subsidiary content. The CPU 301 then gives the controlinformation to the content separation control unit 310 through thecontrol I/F 303. In response to the control information, the contentseparation control unit 310 uses a medium processing/display controlunit 304 to extract the supplementary audio data, and then supplies thesupplementary audio data to the request information input/transmissioncontrol unit 313 through a content data I/F 314. After that, thesupplementary audio data in question is supplied from the requestinformation input/transmission control unit 313 to, for example, a radiointerface unit (main) 320 for performing data communications withinfrared rays by means of light modulation. The radio interface unit(main) 320 transmits the supplied supplementary audio data to thesubsidiary content control receiver A 101 by means of radiotransmission.

Here, the request information input/transmission control unit 313performs encoding control so that the subsidiary content is compressedand encoded by the medium processing/display control unit 304. Then, thecontent information obtained by compressing and encoding the subsidiarycontent is packeted into communication packets, the subsidiary contenthaving been extracted as a result of the separation of the receivedstream by the medium processing/display control unit 304 in response tothe request information. The radio interface unit (main) 320 transmits,by radio, this encoded and packeted subsidiary content to the subsidiarycontent control receiver. An encoding unit of the mediumprocessing/display control unit 304 compresses and encodes not onlyaudio data but also image data.

In addition, the subsidiary content control receiver A 101 or B 102transmits ID information specific to the subsidiary content controlreceiver in question together with the acquisition request to acquirethe subsidiary content. This ID information is temporarily stored in therequest information input/transmission control unit 313. After that, therequest information input/transmission control unit 313 adds thetemporarily stored ID information to EPG data that has been extracted asa result of the separation of the received stream by the contentseparation control unit 310. The request information input/transmissioncontrol unit 313 then transmits the EPG data from the radio interfaceunit (main) 320 to the subsidiary content control receiver side. Detailsthereof will be described later.

On the other hand, main content data, into which the content separationcontrol unit 310 has separated the received stream, is supplied to themedium processing/display control unit 304 through the content data I/F314. The medium processing/display control unit 304 executes specifiedimage and audio processing by use of a working memory 307. In this case,the medium processing/display control unit 304 supplies video data ofthe main content to a display unit 305, and supplies audio data of themain content to a speaker 306. As a result, the video and audio outputsof the main content are performed. Incidentally, the display unit 305may also be, for example, a plasma display panel or a liquid crystalpanel.

In addition, the medium processing/display control unit 304 has afunction of processing subsidiary content data that has been extractedas a result of the separation of the received stream by the contentseparation control unit 310. Here, it may also be so devised that thissubsidiary content is subjected to desired image processing before thesubsidiary content is supplied to the request informationinput/transmission control unit 313 and the radio interface unit (main)320. The image processing for the subsidiary content is executed inresponse to a request from the subsidiary content control receiver A 101or B 102. For example, when a request to convert a video format isissued from the subsidiary content control receiver A 101 or B 102, themedium processing/display control unit 304 converts a video format ofthe subsidiary content. For example, if an encoding method for encodingthe subsidiary content is MPEG-2, the video format of the subsidiarycontent is converted into, for example, a video format corresponding tothe capability of the subsidiary content control receiver in question(for example, MPEG-4 or H.264).

A HDD 315 is connected to the content separation control unit 31( )through the content data I/F 314. The HDD 315 mainly records the maincontent obtained as a result of the separation by the content separationcontrol unit 310. As a matter of course, the subsidiary content may alsobe recorded to the HDD 315. The HDD 315 may also be used as a substitutefor the working memory 307 used to convert the video format as describedabove. Recording operation in the HDD 315 is executed in response to arecording request from the remote control unit or from the subsidiarycontent control receiver A 101 or B 102 that is used together with theremote control unit. In addition, it may also be so devised that thesubsidiary content, which has been recorded to the HDD, is transmittedto the subsidiary content control receiver in question through therequest information input/transmission control unit 313 and the radiointerface unit (main) 320. Moreover, the main content recorded to theHDD 315 may also be transmitted to the subsidiary content controlreceiver in question in like manner. In this case, the mediumprocessing/display control unit 304 may convert a format of the maincontent into a format that conforms to a display format of thesubsidiary content control receiver in question, before the main contentis transmitted. For example, if video data of the main content has aresolution of 1980×1080, whereas a display unit 411 of the subsidiarycontent control receiver in question has a resolution of 320×240, thedefinition of the main content may also be changed by the mediumprocessing/display control unit 304 to suit the resolution of thedisplay unit 411. To be more specific, the main content may also beconverted into signals whose number of pixels is 320×240.

In addition, the content separation control unit 310 also has a functionof managing information including: information about contract channelsas fee-based services, and billing thereof; information used for thecopyright protection; and information about the copyright of videocontent. Then, for example, user contractual coverage of a digitalbroadcast of a desired channel is checked by use of the above-describedmanagement information. If necessary, authentication processing anddecryption processing are performed. This makes it possible to preventcontent from being illegally copied, the authority to view the contenthaving been given to a specific user. As a result, a content holder canprovide the content without anxiety. Moreover, the content separationcontrol unit 310 may also be configured to manage the copyright of thesubsidiary content. This also makes it possible to prevent thesubsidiary content from being illegally copied.

Next, a specific example of the subsidiary content control receivers A101, B 102 will be described. As shown in FIG. 2, the two subsidiarycontent control receivers A 101, B 102 are used in this embodiment.Here, it is assumed that both of them have the same function andconfiguration (except that ID information differs from each other).Therefore, in the description below, only the subsidiary content controlreceiver A 101 will be described. In addition, according to thisembodiment, the number of subsidiary content control receivers is two.However, as a matter of course, the number of subsidiary content controlreceivers may also be three, four, or more. Moreover, this example willbe described with a portable telephone being taken as an example of thesubsidiary content control receiver. Portable equipment such as aportable video game machine may also be used as the subsidiary contentcontrol receiver so long as the portable equipment has a networkfunction, and also has a function of transmitting/receiving controlinformation and content information to/from the main content receivingdisplay unit 100.

The subsidiary content control receiver A 101 includes a radio interfaceunit (sub) 420. The subsidiary content control receiver A 101 uses theradio interface unit (sub) 420 to perform two-way communications withthe main content receiving display unit 100. First of all, transmissionof data and information from the subsidiary content control receiver A101 to the main content receiving display unit 100 will be described.

An operation unit 413 has a keyboard including a cursor key, numerickeys, and decision key. A user can select desired subsidiary contentthrough the operation of these keys. To be more specific, subsidiarycontent is selected using a selection menu displayed on the display unit411 and the keyboard.

When the user inputs an instruction to acquire the subsidiary contentinto the subsidiary content control receiver A 101, a CPU 401 displays,for example, a menu screen used to select subsidiary content as shown inFIG. 3 on the display unit 411 according to a program stored in a mainmemory 402. As seen in FIG. 3, this menu screen includes icons 450, eachof which is used to select a kind of the subsidiary content. In thisexample, five icons 450 are displayed. The five icons 450 correspond to“Program guide”, “Supplementary audio”, “Subtitles”, “Data broadcast”,and “Related information” respectively.

The “Program guide” is the above-described electronic program guide(EPG). For example, a program guide whose format is similar to that oftelevision program listings appearing in newspaper pages is displayed.The “Supplementary audio” is, for example, audio in other languages,such as second audio. For example, if Japanese is used as main audio,audio in English or Chinese is used as the supplementary audio. The“Subtitles” is subtitle data that is provided in synchronization withaudio of the main content. The “Data broadcast” is, for example, datadescribed in BML (Broadcast Markup Language). The “Data broadcast” isused to provide, for example, news, market information such as stockprices, weather forecast, and advertisement information such ascommodities. In addition, the “Related information” is, for example,information relating to main content. For example, if the main contentis a drama, the “Related information” includes the director and cast ofthe drama, and web page information (URL) of the drama. Further, if themain content is a commercial, the “Related information” includesinformation relating to a commodity introduced in the commercial. Morespecifically, the “Related information” includes, for example, a priceof the commodity, the scheduled sale day, a manufacturer of thecommodity, and web page information (URL) of the manufacturer. In thecase of broadband content, a broadband communication path is utilized.Accordingly, in addition to the delivery of the same contentinformation, it is also possible to deliver commercial information thatsuits user's age group, and user's taste. Thus, besides main commercialsprovided by main sponsors, it is also possible to provide each of thesubsidiary content control receivers A 101, B 102 with commercialinformation corresponding to a user who possesses a terminal unit.

A user refers to a selection menu screen, which is displayed on thedisplay unit 411 of the subsidiary content control receiver A 101, andthen selects a desired kind of subsidiary content from among the fiveicons 450. This selection is made by moving a cursor 460 to the desiredicon 450 by use of an unillustrated cursor key of the keyboard, and thenby pressing an unillustrated decision key. In the example shown in FIG.3, the cursor is positioned over the icon 450 corresponding to the“Program guide”. This means that the “Program guide” is selected.Incidentally, in this example, the icon 450 is selected by use of thecursor key and the decision key. However, a display surface of thedisplay unit 411 may also be provided with a touch panel so that each ofthe icons 450 can be selected by directly touching the display surfacein question. This selection menu is hierarchized. It is possible tocustomize the selection menu on the basis of an operation history of theuser. The selection menu is selectable by key operation.

When desired subsidiary content is selected, the CPU 401 generates anacquisition request to acquire the subsidiary content. Because the“Program guide” is selected in this example, the CPU 401 generates anacquisition request to acquire the “Program guide”. Next, the CPU 411reads out ID information specific to the subsidiary content controlreceiver A 101, the ID information being stored in the main memory.Then, the CPU 411 outputs the ID information and the generatedacquisition request to a communication control unit 405 through acontrol I/F 404. As a matter of course, the subsidiary content controlreceiver B 102 stores ID information that differs from that of thesubsidiary content control receiver A 101. After that, the communicationcontrol unit 405 associates the acquisition request with the IDinformation, and then transmits them from the radio interface unit (sub)420 to the main content receiving display unit 100 side. Incidentally,although the ID information is stored in the main memory 402 in thisexample, the ID information may also be stored in, for example, a RAM inthe CPU 401. In addition, the ID information includes: a kind ofdecryption method of each of the subsidiary content control receivers A101, B 102; equipment information such as the resolution of the displayunit 411; and user information used to identify an individual.

Subsequently, transmission of data and information from the main contentreceiving display unit 100 to the subsidiary content control receiver A101 will be described. As described above, packet data of subsidiarycontent corresponding to the acquisition request is transmitted from themain content receiving display unit 100 together with the ID informationtransmitted from the subsidiary content control receiver A 101. Theradio interface unit (sub) 420 receives the packet data to which the IDinformation is added. The packet data is then supplied to thecommunication control unit 405. Here, the communication control unit 405includes a comparison unit and a decryption unit. The comparison unitcompares the ID information, which is added to the received packet data,with ID information that is stored in the subsidiary content controlreceiver A 101 (more specifically, ID information stored in the mainmemory 402). As a result of the comparison, if both of them do not agreewith each other, the received packet is discarded. If both of them agreewith each other, the decoding unit decodes the received packet, andthereby data of the subsidiary content is reproduced. In addition to theID information specific to the subsidiary content control receiver inquestion, the ID information may also include: a kind of a decodingfunction of the subsidiary content control receiver in question; theresolution of the display unit thereof; the performance of the CPU; atelephone number by which a user who possesses the subsidiary contentcontrol receiver in question can be identified; and settlementinformation.

The packet data of the subsidiary content coming from the main contentreceiving display unit 100 can also be received by the subsidiarycontent control receiver B 101. However, because the ID informationwhich is added to the packet data in question (that is to say, the IDinformation specified to the subsidiary content control receiver A 101)differs from the ID information that is stored in the subsidiary contentcontrol receiver B 102, the packet data in question is discarded in thesubsidiary content control receiver B 102. As a result, it is possibleto acquire subsidiary content on a subsidiary content control receiverbasis.

The subsidiary content data, which has been decoded and reproduced bythe communication control unit 405, is supplied to a stream control unit408 and a medium processing/display control unit 409 through a contentdata I/F 407. The medium processing/display control unit 409 uses aworking memory 410 to perform specified image processing of image dataof the subsidiary content, and to perform specified audio processing ofaudio data of the subsidiary content. The image data of the subsidiarycontent, which has been subjected to the image processing by the mediumprocessing/display control unit 409, is supplied to the display unit 411so that the image data is displayed. On the other hand, the audio dataof the subsidiary content, which has been subjected to the audioprocessing, is supplied to a speaker 306 so that the audio data isoutput. As a result, it is possible to view the subsidiary content byuse of, for example, the subsidiary content control receiver A 101 thatis formed of a portable telephone, or the like.

In addition, a security control unit 403 also has a function of managinginformation including: information about contract channels as fee-basedservices, and billing thereof; information used for the copyrightprotection; and information about the copyright of video content. Then,for example, user contractual coverage of a digital broadcast of adesired channel is checked by use of the above-described managementinformation. If necessary, authentication processing and decryptionprocessing are performed. This makes it possible to prevent content frombeing illegally copied, the authority to view the content having beengiven to a specific user. As a result, a content holder can provide thecontent without anxiety. If the subsidiary content control receiver inquestion is a portable telephone, the security control unit 403 may alsoperform the charging and settlement processing relating to viewedcontent by utilizing functions of the portable telephone. If each of thesubsidiary content control receivers A 101, B 102 includes a storagemedium (a SD card, a small-size HDD, or the like), it is also possibleto download content to the storage medium by including the authorizationto view the content in the above-described ID information. Accordingly,it also becomes possible to carry information of the main content.

The process flow of how to acquire subsidiary content of theabove-described contents receiving system according to this embodimentwill be schematically described with reference to FIG. 4. In FIG. 4,steps S10 through S13 and S16 through S19 are processing on thesubsidiary content control receiver side, whereas steps S14 through S15are processing on the main content receiving display unit 100 side.

First of all, in the step S10, the menu screen used to select subsidiarycontent, which is shown in FIG. 3, is displayed. In the step S11, a userselects the icon 450 corresponding to a kind of desired subsidiarycontent while viewing the menu screen. Next, in the step S12, the CPU401 generates an acquisition request to acquire the subsidiary contentcorresponding to the selected icon 450, and then reads out IDinformation from the main memory 402. Subsequently, in the step S13, acommunication control unit 405 adds the ID information to theacquisition request, and then transmits the acquisition request to themain content receiving display unit 100 through the radio interface unit(sub) 420.

In the step S14, the content separation control unit 310 of the maincontent receiving display unit 100 acquires a kind of the subsidiarycontent indicated by the acquisition request, a kind of encoding that isto be subjected to decoding so as to generate reproducible subsidiarycontent, and resolution information of the display unit 411. The contentseparation control unit 310 then authenticates the connection to thesubsidiary content control receiver A 101 or B 102 to which the user isallowed to connect so that corresponding subsidiary content is extractedfrom the received stream as a result of the separation of a receivedstream. Incidentally, as described above, the ID information which hasbeen added to the acquisition request is temporarily stored in therequest information input/transmission control unit 313. After that, therequest information input/transmission control unit 313 compresses andencodes the stored ID information and the extracted subsidiary content,and further converts them into packets. The packets are then transmittedto the subsidiary content control receiver side through the radiointerface unit (main) 320.

Subsequently, in the step S16, the communication control unit 405 of thesubsidiary content control receiver in question compares ID informationincluded in the packet data transmitted from the main content receivingdisplay unit 100 with ID information of the subsidiary content controlreceiver in question. Here, if both of them do not agree with eachother, the process proceeds to the step S17 where the received packetdata is discarded. If they agree with each other, the process proceedsto the step S18 where the communication control unit 405 decodes thesubsidiary content. Lastly, in the step S19, video data of the decodedsubsidiary content is output by the display unit 411, and/or audio dataof the decoded subsidiary content is output by the speaker 412.

Thus, according to this embodiment, because it becomes possible torequest, acquire, and view the subsidiary content on a subsidiarycontent control receiver basis, it is possible to achieve thepersonalization of the subsidiary content. Moreover, on the basis of thepersonalized subsidiary content and the main content, it is possible toacquire favorite information with the family members or on an individualbasis. Therefore, it is possible to achieve a new viewing style.

Incidentally, as shown in FIG. 3, one menu screen is used to select thesubsidiary content in this embodiment. However, it may also be soconfigured that a plurality of menu screens are hierarchically providedto allow a user to select subsidiary content by use of the plurality ofmenu screens. For example, when an icon corresponding to the “Databroadcast” is selected in the menu screen, another menu screen, which isconstituted of icons each corresponding to a kind of “Data broadcast”(for example, “News”, “Market information”, and “Weather forecast”), isdisplayed so that the menu screen is used to select subsidiary content.

In addition, the radio interface unit may also use, for example, awireless network such as a wireless LAN.

Next, one specific example of the acquisition of subsidiary contentaccording to this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. 5.Because specific processing of each subsidiary content control receiverwhich uses ID information is the same as that described above,description thereof will be omitted here. FIG. 5 is a diagramillustrating as an example the flow of content acquisition that usesbroadband Internet. A stream which includes movie content correspondingto multi-languages is delivered from a content delivery unit. Thisstream 500 includes: video content 501 that is handled as main content;and Japanese audio data 502 and English audio data 503, both of whichare handled as subsidiary content.

The subsidiary content control receiver A 101 transmits an acquisitionrequest 505 to acquire English audio data, and ID information, to themain content receiving display unit 100. Here, the English audio data issecond audio data accompanying the movie content. The main contentreceiving display unit 100 analyzes the received data, and then judgesthat the received data includes the acquisition request to acquire theEnglish audio data. Accordingly, the main content receiving display unit100 extracts the English audio data 505, which is the second audio data,from the video content 504 received from the broadband Internet. Then,the main content receiving display unit 100 transmits the extractedEnglish audio data 505 to the subsidiary content control receiver A 101together with ID information of the subsidiary content control receiverA 101.

On the other hand, the subsidiary content control receiver B 102transmits an acquisition request 506 to acquire subtitle dataaccompanying the movie content, and ID information, to the main contentreceiving display unit 100. The main content receiving display unit 100analyzes the received data, and then judges that the received dataincludes the acquisition request to acquire the subtitle data.Accordingly, the main content receiving display unit 100 extracts thesubtitle data 508 from the video content 504 received from the broadbandInternet, and then transmits the extracted subtitle data 508 to thesubsidiary content control receiver B 101 together with ID informationof the subsidiary content control receiver B 102.

The main content receiving display unit 100 supplies the video contentthat is the main content, and also provides a viewing environment basedon Japanese audio. In addition to them, the main content receivingdisplay unit 100 supplies the subsidiary content to each of thesubsidiary content control receivers A 101, B 102 in response to arequest from one or more users to acquire desired subsidiary content.

As a result, even if the family members are viewing the same movietitle, it is possible to provide a different viewing environment (forexample, viewing with English audio data, and viewing with Japaneseaudio data) on an individual basis.

Next, another specific example of the acquisition of subsidiary contentaccording to this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. 6.Because specific processing of each subsidiary content control receiverwhich uses ID information is the same as that described above,description thereof will be omitted here. FIG. 6 is a diagramillustrating as an example the flow of the content acquisition that usesa broadcast wave and broadband. This example is a case where automobilecommercial content is viewed from the broadcast wave. A stream 600coming from the broadcast wave includes: the automobile commercialcontent 601 that is the main content; automobile information 602including a URL of a home page of an automobile manufacturer, and pricesare grades; and commercial song information 603. The automobileinformation 602 and the commercial song information 603 are thesubsidiary content, and accompany the automobile commercial content 601.

The subsidiary content control receiver A 102 transmits an acquisitionrequest 605 to acquire the automobile information 602, which accompaniesbroadcast wave video content information 600, to the main contentreceiving display unit 100 together with ID information. The maincontent receiving display unit 100 analyzes the received data, and thenjudges that the received data includes the acquisition request toacquire the automobile information. Then, the main content receivingdisplay unit 100 analyzes metadata information including URLs of Websites from the video content 604 received through the broadband Internetso as to extract the automobile information. The automobile informationis transmitted to the subsidiary content control receiver A 101 togetherwith the ID information of the subsidiary content control receiver A101. The subsidiary content control receiver A 101 accesses aninformation providing server 610 on the basis of the URL informationincluded in the automobile information to acquire the automobileinformation including desired prices and grades from the informationproviding server 610 so that the automobile information is displayed. Ifthe subsidiary content control receiver A 101 is a portable telephone,it is also possible to acquire information by accessing the informationproviding server 610 through a portable telephone network.

On the other hand, the subsidiary content control receiver B 102transmits an acquisition request 606 to acquire information relating toBGM (Back Ground Music) of an automobile commercial to the main contentreceiving display unit 100 together with ID information. The maincontent receiving display unit 100 analyzes the received data, andthereby judges that the received data includes a request to acquirecommercial song information accompanying the automobile commercialcontent 601. After that, the main content receiving display unit 100extracts the commercial song information 603 from the video contentinformation 600 received from the broadcast wave, and then transmits thecommercial song information 603 to the subsidiary content controlreceiver B 102 together with the ID information of the subsidiarycontent control receiver B 102. The subsidiary content control receiverB 102 accesses the information providing server 610 on the basis of theURL information to acquire, from the information providing server 610,information including a title of a desired commercial song (BGM), anartist name, and an album name so that the acquired information isdisplayed. If the subsidiary content control receiver B 102 is aportable telephone, it is also possible to acquire the information byaccessing the information providing server 610 through the portabletelephone network.

As a result, even if the family members are viewing automobilecommercial content information, it is possible to acquire the automobileinformation and the commercial song information on an individual basis.Therefore, it becomes possible to provide a new CM viewing environmentthat could not be achieved by the conventional technologies. Moreover,by sharing a television set located in a living room among the familymembers, and by possessing each subsidiary content control receiver byeach family member, it becomes possible to enjoy a digital life stylethat differs from the conventional ones, the digital life style inquestion being based on not only the main content information but alsothe subsidiary content information corresponding to users taste.

Still another specific example of this embodiment will be described withreference to FIG. 7, Heretofore, while a broadcast program from abroadcast wave and a broadband is viewed, it is possible to makeprogrammed recording by use of EPG data 702. In this case, because ascreen of a television receiver is also used as a user operation screen,both movie content 701 and EPG content 702 are displayed on one screenduring the programmed recording operation. In contrast to this, in thisexample, if a user wants to continuously view the movie content 701, itis possible to display the EPG data, which is the subsidiary content, byuse of each of the subsidiary content control receivers A 101, B 102 athand. This enables the main content receiving display unit 100 tocontinuously display only the video content with high image quality on alarge screen.

When the movie content 701 is being viewed, a user who possesses thesubsidiary content control receiver A 101 can display the EPG screen 702thereon to make a programmed recording of a desired broadcast program athand. In addition, another user can use the subsidiary content controlreceiver B 102 to listen to second audio information of the moviecontent 701 through a headphone 703. As a result, while the main contentis displayed by the main content receiving display unit 100, it ispossible for a user to check EPG, ECG, or the like, or to make aprogrammed recording with reference to the EPG, ECG, or the like, by useof a subsidiary content control receiver held by the user.

Second Embodiment

In the above-described embodiment, the ID information is determined on asubsidiary content control receiver basis. Any ID information may alsobe used so long as each subsidiary content control receiver can beidentified. For example, if subsidiary content control receivers cancommunicate through a network, an IP address, which is assigned to eachsubsidiary content control receiver, can also be used as the IDinformation. This IP address may be a local address, or may also be aglobal address that can be used in the Internet.

An embodiment in which ID information is used as an IP address will bedescribed with reference to FIG. 8. FIG. 8 is a table illustrating tableinformation stored in the main content receiving display unit 100. Inthe table, each of the subsidiary content control receivers A 101, B 102is associated with request information, and an IP address of the eachsubsidiary content control receiver. The request information indicates akind of subsidiary content including EPG data, English audio data,subtitle data, ECG data, and URL information of a Web site. Any kind ofsubsidiary content may also be used so long as it accompanies maincontent such as video content. Here, by associating the requestinformation with an IP address of a corresponding subsidiary contentcontrol receiver beforehand, the main content receiving display unit 100can provide desired content information on the basis of this table. Thetable shown in FIG. 8 is merely an example. Therefore, the IP addressmay also be an ID specific to each apparatus used for communications,such as a global address of IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6), and atelephone number of a portable telephone.

This embodiment can be applied to a system that is capable of receivinga stream including main content and subsidiary content, and that iscapable of separating the stream into the main content and thesubsidiary content to supply a main display unit and a sub display unitwith the main content and the subsidiary content.

1. (canceled)
 2. An audio content reproducing system comprising: a mainterminal; and a plurality of subsidiary terminals, wherein the mainterminal comprises: a storage storing the audio content which iscomprised of a plurality of audio data; a first speaker outputting theaudio content; and a first controller controlling transmission/receptionwith the subsidiary terminals and decoding the audio content, whereinthe first controller is configured to: store a plurality of devicespecific identification (ID) information of the subsidiary terminals,store association information for transmitting one of the audio data ofthe audio content to one of the subsidiary terminals, encode the audiodata of the audio content, and transmit the encoded audio data of theaudio content to the subsidiary terminals, wherein the associationinformation defines that one of the audio data of the audio contentassociated with one of the device specific ID information, wherein theplurality of subsidiary terminals comprises: a second speaker; and asecond controller controlling transmission/reception with the mainterminal and decoding the encoded audio data, wherein the secondcontroller is configured to: store device specific ID information foridentifying the subsidiary terminal, transmit the device specific IDinformation to the main terminal when connecting to the main terminal,and wherein the main terminal transmits the encoded audio data of theaudio content to the subsidiary terminals based on the associationinformation, then the subsidiary terminals output the audio data to thesecond speaker.
 3. The audio content reproducing system according toclaim 2, wherein the main terminal includes a network interface andacquires the audio content from an external server via the networkinterface.
 4. The audio content reproducing system according to claim 2,wherein the first controller authenticates a connection between thesubsidiary terminals.
 5. The audio content reproducing system accordingto claim 2, wherein the encoded audio data which is received by one ofthe subsidiary terminals differs from the encoded audio data which isreceived by the other of the subsidiary terminals.
 6. An audio contentreproducing system comprising: a main terminal; first subsidiaryterminal; and second subsidiary terminal, wherein the main terminalcomprises: a storage storing the audio content which is comprising firstaudio data and second audio data; a first speaker outputting the audiocontent; and a first controller controlling transmission/reception withthe first subsidiary terminal and the second subsidiary terminal, anddecoding the audio content, wherein the first controller is configuredto: store first device specific identification (ID) information of thefirst subsidiary terminal and second device specific ID information ofthe second subsidiary terminal, store association information fortransmitting the first audio data of the audio content or the secondaudio data of the audio content to one of the first subsidiary terminalor the second subsidiary terminal, encode the first audio data and thesecond audio data, and transmit the encoded first audio data or theencoded second audio data to one of the first subsidiary terminal or thesecond subsidiary terminal, wherein the association information definesthat one of the first audio data or the second audio data is associatedwith one of the first device specific ID information or the seconddevice specific ID information, wherein the first subsidiary terminalcomprises: a second speaker; and a second controller controllingtransmission/reception with the main terminal, decoding the encodedfirst audio data or the encoded second audio data, storing the firstdevice specific ID information for identifying the first subsidiaryterminal, and transmitting the first device specific ID information tothe main terminal when connecting to the main terminal, wherein thesecond subsidiary terminal comprises: a third speaker; and a thirdcontroller controlling transmission/reception with the main terminal,decoding the encoded first audio data or the encoded second audio data,storing the second device specific ID information for identifying thesecond subsidiary terminal, and transmitting the second device specificID information to the main terminal when connecting to the mainterminal, and wherein, when the association information defines that thefirst audio data is associated with the first device specific IDinformation and the second audio data is associated with the seconddevice specific ID information, the main terminal transmits the encodedfirst audio data to the first subsidiary terminal and transmits theencoded second audio data to the second subsidiary terminal, then thefirst subsidiary terminal outputs the first audio data to the secondspeaker and the second subsidiary terminal outputs the second audio datato the third speaker, and when the association information defines thatthe second audio data is associated with the first device specific IDinformation and the first audio data is associated with the seconddevice specific ID information, the main terminal transmits the encodedsecond audio data to the first subsidiary terminal and transmits theencoded first audio data to the second subsidiary terminal, then thefirst subsidiary terminal outputs the second audio data to the secondspeaker and the second subsidiary terminal outputs the first audio datato the third speaker.
 7. A method of reproducing audio content in anaudio content reproducing system having a main terminal including afirst speaker and a plurality of subsidiary terminals including a secondspeaker, the method comprising: storing the audio content which iscomprised of a plurality of audio data; outputting the audio content tothe first speaker of the main terminal; and controllingtransmission/reception with the subsidiary terminals and decoding theaudio content, including: storing a plurality of device specificidentification (ID) information of the subsidiary terminals, storingassociation information for transmitting one of the audio data of theaudio content to one of the subsidiary terminals, encoding the audiodata of the audio content, and transmitting the encoded audio data ofthe audio content to the subsidiary terminals, wherein the associationinformation defines that one of the audio data of the audio contentassociated with one of the device specific ID information, andcontrolling transmission/reception with the main terminal and decodingthe encoded audio data, including: storing device specific IDinformation for identifying the subsidiary terminal, and transmittingthe device specific ID information to the main terminal when connectingto the main terminal, wherein the main terminal transmits the encodedaudio data of the audio content to the subsidiary terminals based on theassociation information, then the subsidiary terminals output the audiodata to the second speaker.
 8. The method of reproducing audio contentin an audio content reproducing system according to claim 7, wherein themain terminal includes a network interface, and acquiring the audiocontent from an external server via the network interface.
 9. The methodof reproducing audio content in an audio content reproducing systemaccording to claim 7, further including authenticating a connectionbetween the subsidiary terminals in the step of controllingtransmission/reception with the subsidiary terminals.
 10. The method ofreproducing audio content in an audio content reproducing systemaccording to claim 7, further including wherein the encoding of theaudio data of the audio content ensures that encoded audio data which isreceived by one of the subsidiary terminals differs from the encodedaudio data which is received by the other of the subsidiary terminals.